Optimate at Blechexpo 2023 in Stuttgart: Hall 1, Booth 1106-1
‘If you are a contract manufacturer or design engineer in sheet metal processing and would like to experience and test our automated part analysis live, our booth in Hall 1 is just the place for you’, says Optimate CEO Jonas Steiling about the Stuttgart-based TRUMPF spin-off’s most important trade show appearance every year. What began as a start-up in 2020 has now outgrown its infancy and become a veritable companion for sheet metal processing. The cloud-based web app now covers much more than it did when it was launched three years ago. ‘Our automatic part optimization now generates 70 percent more suggestions, recognizes more optimization potential and can offer contract manufacturers as well as the design department even more creative approaches to reducing costs’, adds Sebastian Beger, CSO at Optimate GmbH. With the App, designers and sheet metal processors can identify defective parts in advance and adjust them, if necessary, even before they enter production. According to Optimate, the feasibility analysis finds almost every part that cannot be finished and provides reliable warnings, which should especially please contract manufacturers and metal fabricators. Thus, the latter do not discover as late as in the programming stage or even at the bending machine that a part cannot be produced in this way.
Flexible entry options
There are three options for using the Optimate App: via the browser, via an API interface or via a CAD plug-in. In particular, contract manufacturers or production-related work preparation can thus use the feasibility analysis, cost calculation and part optimization directly in the browser-based web app without installation. After registering, the user can get started immediately without any major effort. Users and web shops that want to access Optimate’s sheet metal knowledge across the board can do so via an API interface. On the other hand, those who want to use the tool in their CAD system for design purposes can do so via a CAD plug-in for SolidWorks. Sebastian Beger is already curious about the reaction of the trade fair visitors: ‘We will also present this integration to a broad professional audience for the first time at Blechexpo in Stuttgart. We are already extremely excited about the response.’ The development of further plug-ins for other CAD systems for users in design and work preparation is also planned.
Cost calculation for entire assemblies
Assembly analysis and cost calculation were added as new features. ‘In 2020, we started with the areas of feasibility analysis and optimization and have now expanded these to include a cost calculation’, says CSO Sebastian Beger. Users are now shown the three options for digital support as soon as they enter the App. ‘If a user uploads his parts to the App via the browser, he sees feasibility warnings as well as optimization potential on the screen within a few seconds’, Beger specifies. And Jonas Steiling adds: ‘By using our cost calculation, designers of sheet metal parts can identify possible cost drivers already in the development process.’
In addition to the analysis of individual parts, assemblies with up to 25 individual parts can also be checked for feasibility and optimization potential. Users can upload a complete assembly to the Optimate App during design, which is then disassembled and checked for feasibility.
But what good is a feasibility check without a cost analysis? That’s why the App simultaneously determines the optimization potential for the individual sheet metal parts and performs a cost calculation. ‘For some users, it is also interesting from a cost perspective to consider the complete assembly. For the optimization of complete assemblies, we are currently using a hybrid approach, which we will be happy to explain in more detail at the trade show booth’, concludes CSO Sebastian Beger.
